RI moves closer to banning high-capacity magazines, raising minimum age for gun purchases
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PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island is on its way to becoming the 11th state, plus the District of Columbia, to place limits on firearm magazines.
Despite yet another protest by yellow T-shirt wearing gun-rights advocates at the State House on Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a three-bill package that would:
• Prohibit the sale or possession of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
• Raise the age to buy a firearm or ammunition from 18 to 21.
• Prohibit the carrying of loaded rifles and shotguns in public.
Leaders have called a rare Friday session of the full House to vote on the gun package and presumably ship it along to the Senate, where the first votes are scheduled for Tuesday.
If it weren't for the votes cast by House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and House Majority Leader Christopher Blazejewski as ex-officio members of the House Judiciary Committee, the proposed ban on high-capacity magazines would have died on a tie vote.
With their participation, the vote for the ban was 10-8.
Those voting for it included committee Chairman Robert Craven, Carol McEntee, Jason Knight, Edith Ajello, Jose Batista, Justine Caldwell, Leonella Felix, John Lombardi, Shekarchi and Blazejewski, all Democrats.
The nay votes came from Democrats David Bennett, Julie Casimiro, Arthur Corvese, Thomas Noret and Camille Vella-Wilkinson, joining Republicans David Place, Sherry Roberts and Blake Filippi, who as the House minority leader is also allowed to vote as an ex-officio member of every committee.
The other two bills cleared the committee with 14-4 votes of approval – with virtually no debate, only a handful of questions about any of the bills.
As a side note, the vote on the high-capacity magazine ban marked the first time the House speaker and majority leader took part in a committee vote this year. On the rare occasions they did so last year, it was also to help pass gun bills, and more specifically the gun ban on school grounds and prohibition on straw purchases.
While the clerk took the roll call, protesters could be heard shouting just outside door of the hearing room where the judiciary committee was meeting.
One of the protesters, Jordan Hunter, 28, of West Warwick, came to the State House with his 5-year-old daughter, Riley. He wore an American flag like a cape, and she carried a hand-held flag.
He told a reporter he owns a 12-gauge shotgun and, at the start of the pandemic, he acquired an AR-15.
"I came here to support her future and her freedom," he said of his daughter. "It says right in the Constitution: Shall not be infringed."
He wasn’t happy with Thursday’s votes on the gun package, including the move to raise to legal age to buy a firearm to 21.
“I don’t agree with it,” he said. “You can fight a war for your country. You can play the lottery. But you can’t have something to defend yourself.”
In March, Washington became the 10th state to restrict magazine capacity in some way, along with California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.
A lawsuit backed by a California-based pro-gun group was filed in U.S. District Court in Tacoma last week in an attempt to prevent Washington’s impending ban from taking effect July 1.
Gun laws: These states didn't wait for Congress to make a change
High-capacity magazines
Unlike the proposed Rhode Island law, the Washington measure does not ban the possession of high-capacity magazines but outlaws the import or sale of any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
“This is another important case in our … strategic litigation program that seeks to restore the right to keep and bear arms for all peaceable people,” coalition president Brandon Combs said in a news release.
Lawsuit filed after Uvalde shooting
The lawsuit was filed less than two weeks after 19 children and two adults were killed by a lone gunman at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. It states that the new law impinges on Washington residents’ rights to defend themselves.
The lawsuit also argues that the term “large capacity” mislabels what are actually “standard-capacity” magazines for many semiautomatic handguns and rifles. It also alleges that limiting the ammunition capacity of such weapons violates gun owners’ Second and 14th Amendment rights.
The Texas massacre and another mass shooting that killed 10 people last month in Buffalo, New York, prompted President Joe Biden and others to call for bans on some semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Rhode Island's legislative leaders opted against including a ban on so-called assault weapons in the package headed for votes.
Reports from Mark Reynolds
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI gun control: Ban on high-capacity magazines moves closer to passage
